The last few years have seen a massive rise in the availability of digital download versions of full retail games. The advent of larger hard drives in consoles and faster download speeds have resulted in many titles being launched on their respective online service at the same time as retail copies, and older games are also readily available.

A happy consequence of all of this is that we the gamer have access to more free stuff. Games like PlayStation All-Stars offer free downloads of the Vita version when you purchase the PS3 retail game, and the original Bioshock will be bundled with the PS3 version of Bioshock: Infinite (although we don’t know whether this will be a download or included on the blu-ray). The latest addition to this list has been confirmed as Gears of War: Judgment, which will offer a download code for the original Gears of War game when it launches.

At the moment it isn’t known whether this will be a limited time offer, but all launch copies of the game will come with the code. If you haven’t tried out the original Gears of War then now is your perfect opportunity to do so for free – it’s still a fantastic game. Gears of War Judgment will be released on March 19th.